2 Lawsuits Challenge Council on Legality of Lead-Paint Law

By DAVID W. CHEN

Published: April 10, 2004

Groups representing landlords and advocates for low-income housing filed two lawsuits yesterday challenging the city's new lead-paint law, claiming that the City Council acted rashly and illegally before passing it.

The law, adopted in February over the veto of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, regulates the removal of leadpaint hazards, including dust, from apartments built before 1960. It also requires annual identification of all children younger than 7 living in those units.

But in separate lawsuits filed yesterday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, real estate groups, led by the Rent Stabilization Association, and housing groups, led by the Community Preservation Corporation, argued that the Council did not conduct the proper environmental reviews. The real estate groups also argued that the new law mistakenly presumed that all pre-1960 buildings had lead paint -- thereby shifting the burden of liability onto owners, and making it potentially more difficult for them to obtain insurance and financing.

''We believe that the bill is so onerous and will have such dramatic implications for property owners that it will ultimately result in an increase in lead poisoning, and not the desired decrease,'' said Mitchell Posilkin, general counsel of the Rent Stabilization Association.

It is unclear if the litigation will cause a delay in the law, which is set to go into effect in August. But at the very least, lead paint is another issue on which Mr. Bloomberg has sparred with Gifford Miller, the City Council speaker, whose support of the legislation was crucial to its passage.

The mayor's office declined to comment on the lawsuits. David Chai, a spokesman for Mr. Miller, said, ''We're confident that the courts will be on our side in standing up for the health and safety of thousands of New York kids.''

The issue of lead paint has been a potent one since last July, when the State Court of Appeals struck down the city's four-year-old law on cleaning up lead paint. The court said the Council had failed to identify and explain the potential effects on the environment and on public health.

The Council approved a new law in December. In February, it overrode the veto of Mr. Bloomberg, who had sided with city health officials, landlords and advocates of low-income housing who feared that it would cost too much, duplicate programs and discourage moderately priced housing projects.

Indeed, housing officials told council members last month that it would cost about $30 million to comply with the law, only half of which would be covered by the current budget allocation. They also said that about 300 more employees would be needed, as well as time to train them and contractors.

Meanwhile, the issue brought together groups -- nonprofit housing developers and landlords -- that have been more accustomed to being on different sides of the housing and health debate. So in filing separate lawsuits, the two groups seemed to be suggesting that while they concurred on the lead-paint issue, no one had crossed the ideological divide for good.

''Our group has a certain degree of uniformity -- nonprofit groups, with a community development focus,'' said John M. McCarthy, executive vice president of Community Preservation Corporation. ''We have some overlap with R.S.A. and the landlord groups, but we don't coincide on other things. So we wanted to make sure that we maintained our distinctive voice.''